On the Pornography of Devastation

Natural disasters, like wars, are fantastical traumas, the unimaginable made manifest in a torrent of destruction. There is an immediacy to images of hills alight in fire. But what happens after the initial trauma has past? What then?

There is a kind of pornographic rubbernecking that makes up much of our daily news consumption. The working news model is based on a poll-tested assumption that viewers are drawn to the gore of natural disaster and war, less drawn to what happens after, when the flying circus has gone. The flying circus is what my old colleague at CNN, Ingrid Formanek, called the traveling war zone contingent, of which she was a charter member.

This, of course, is the case of New Orleans. "The story has lost its punch; there's no real news peg; no budget for enterprise stories; too many demands for live coverage; staffing cutbacks; there are no pictures; the audience isn't interested anymore."

Looking back on it, I can see now why I was drawn to the stories and countries I covered when I was a journalist overseas, so many repairing -- as in Rwanda and Bosnia -- from the most horrid of all experiences on the human scale. How do people muster the strength of spirit it takes to simply go on, not to mention adapt, learn, and re-imagine a future so scarred by the recent past?

In many ways, these are the issues that we as a nation are facing as a result of the successive traumas of September 11th, Katrina, and Iraq. They are issues that I've heard discussed in so many different ways in my ongoing journeys by Greyhound, part of a project aimed at rendering this pivotal period in story, song, and image.

For many who travel by bus, including some of the 3.6 million seniors who live on the equivalent of less than $9,400 a year, there is a stark indifference of a slow devastation, a time-elapsed disaster of the human kind, one that lacks the immediacy and images of others.

If you were to put the nation's 30 largest cities side by side (hypothetically speaking), include in this supercity L.A., New York, Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Antonio, San Diego, Dallas, Detroit, Indianapolis, San Francisco, Columbus, Austin, Baltimore, Charlotte, Seattle, Boston, Denver, D.C., Nashville, Las Vegas, all the way down the list of 30 cities to Portland. If you totaled the population of this megalopolis, it would almost reach the number of Americans who live in poverty.

Thirty-seven million of our people live on the equivalent of less than $12,800 a year for a single parent. Sixteen million of these people live in what's called deep poverty, which is half the poverty threshold: $6,400 for a single parent; $4,700 for a senior.

"There's another kind of violence," Robert Kennedy said, quoting Martin Luther King Jr. on the the night after the Dr. King was shot. "It's just as deadly as the shot in the night. This is the violence of institutions...the violence that afflicts the poor, that poisons relations between men because their skin has different colors. the slow destruction of a child by hunger."

Comments

[dustparticles]

Well said and well done in telling the stories of those catastrophes we might not otherwise notice.

[johntal]

I believe that most peoples' reaction is "but for the Grace of God......

[douglevitt]

mine sure is, that's for sure..

[stefanmarkey]

I was wondering...What was the name of that bar in Brooklyn we were at where we placed our bets on who the Democrats would nominate?

[douglevitt]

It's called the 'who are you bar'? you're thinking of tammany hall. i remember, i'm the guy who's going to win the bet right?

[Plev]

The "Greyhound Community" feel their vote doesn't count, and thus starts a vicious cycle where they are rarely courted by those who could potentially improve their circumstances. As we all know politicians focus their efforts on those who can get them (and keep them) elected.

[douglevitt]

Yes! This is precisely the problem. It's an issue of mobilization. I, for one, would like Greyhound to open its terminals to non-partisan voter registration. For a country that's great at branding and technology, the vote has the cache and accessibility of hall passes and number two pencils. And the reality, in the most simple terms, is that if American democracy were truer (if not entirely true) snapshot of the political views of our people, we would have a much fairer government - and a that much fairer world. Thanks so much for your comment! And for referencing the 'Greyhound Community,' which it really is. Doug

[nowaterboardUSA]

I agree with igillooly. However, until we can shift a large number of the US population/corporations away from this 19th Century notion that we all just need to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and/or rely on private chairty/family to get by, not much will change. Charities do great work. Families help each other in so many ways besides financially. The problem is IT IS NOT ENOUGH! You need true government reform on the level of Johnson's Great Society or FDR's New Deal.

[douglevitt]

I agree with you wholeheartedly. Capitalism does some things well, but other things not at all: like protecting the public interest. Indeed the entire idea on which our modern version is founded -- the corporation -- is built around "limited liability," in other words, nobody's repsonsible. The government is the people's liability assurance, there is no other in so many cases. Thanks so much for the comment!

[Aunt Shecky]

There is something to be said for catharsis, the emotional cleansing one experiences after watching a tragic play, for instance. There is even more to be said about empathy and compassion. But the constant "rubbernecking" at another's misfortune can indeed be termed as you put it "the pornography of devastation"
or to use Laura Ingraham's phrase, "emotional
pornography." It is the flip side of Schadenfreude, only instead of feeling superior because of the scandals caused by the rich and famous, it is a kind of counterfeit compassion, a pat on one's back for "feeling sorry" for the downtrodden. It still leaves one feeling "superior."
It is interesting and somehow gratifying that your chosen mode of transport is Greyhound bus, which is also the mode of travel for poor people, though not necessarily by choice. Indeed, when working class people go to their places of employment they either walk or take the city bus. Some middle class folks, so attached to their own cars, which they'd never share in a carpool, believe that it is somehow beneath them to use public transportation. California is a place, we're told, in which people get around almost entirely via private vehicle. If the CO2 in the environment plays a part in creating the conditions for California's present natural disaster,to me the irony is acute.
Thanks for this posting.

[douglevitt]

I like your phrasing of a 'counterfelt compassion.' It is clearly deeply woven into the human psyche, and at the same time boldfaced - to mix metaphors -- by modern media.

You're right about Greyhound. It's a traveling crossroads of sorts, with some knuckleheads, yes, but mostly, hard-working folks on limited income. (Like the ore-miners first transported by the company for 15 cents in MN in 1914).

Not to mention the most interesting conversation you're bound to hear across an aisle.

Thanks so much for reading and for writing your thoughtful and though-provoking comments. !

Have a lovely weekend. Doug

[provgrays]

Sorry to be a nudge, but I think you meant, "...what happens after the initial trauma has passed?"

As written, the last word of that phrase was, "past". I don't mean to be snarky here. I'm a writing teacher.

[douglevitt]

I clearly could use a resident nudge in the for of a writing teacher! So, thank you. I'd like to say it was a typo, but it may well be the D.C. public schools. Thanks again! Doug

[lgillooly]

Every time I hear words from RFK,JFK and MLK it brings home to me the utter lack of thoughtful statesmen left in this once great Country. Where have they all gone?
Now we are lead by fear,hate and greed...so sad.

[douglevitt]

sometimes it's darkest before it's still dark - i'm laying my dollars, as few as they are, on the light... digging ditches in a drought and all. thanks for the comment! d